<p>Hi, I'm a freshman who just finished his 1st semester as an undergrad and I just got my grades back.</p>
<p>My grades:
A, B+, B+, B+</p>
<p>Looks solid but if you switch it to numbers I got
97, 89.4, 89.39, 89</p>
<p>The profs are such teases! Does this happen to you guys alot? What do you guys tend to do? Leave it as it is or email your professor?</p>
<p>I don't really have a compelling argument for raising my grades to an A- because I wasn't that active in class (morning classes + messed up sleep schedule) but I did all my work to the fullest.</p>
<p>Satisfied with what I got, but feeling a bit cheated as well T.T</p>
<p>Do you feel cheated because your percentage points earn you a B+ and so you got a B+ or is it because you’re spoiled and you think you deserve an A because you’re close enough?</p>
<p>Even IF your professors do rounding up to the next whole number when it comes to assigning grades, those decimals wouldn’t round your grades up anyway. No matter what, an 89.4 and 89.39 would never be rounded up to a 90 like an 89.6, 89.7, 89.8, or 89.9 would (depending on how a professor grades, and even then, there are professors out there who specifically point out on the syllabus that even if you get something like 89.9, it’s still a B+ and won’t round it to a 90).</p>
<p>Oh come on, he obviously didn’t mean it like that. It is frustrating to be so close. I’m sure he knows that the professor had every right to give him the B+s, since that’s what his points added up to, but we all know it only came down to several test questions here or there which are often just luck of the draw. That’s annoying and I definitely understand the temptation to ask for a bump. Sometimes teachers will do it when you can prove that you were very active in the class or did extra things on your own time, but that doesn’t sound like the OP’s case. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t push it because you don’t have a particular argument to make other than that it’s annoying, but I completely understand the feeling. If it helps, I’m sure you’ll experience it in the opposite direction, too-- finding yourself getting an A by 1 point, for example.</p>
<p>I am in hs but I completely understand! I hate borderline grades because you are soo close to a different grade, but you do not have it. One test question or something would have given me a 90 is what I always think to myself. I would def talk to the professors, they might give you an A-.</p>
<p>Soprano’s got it right. Your grades are not going to round to a 90. The only hope you’d have is asking your prof to straight-up bump your grade.</p>
<p>If you didn’t really participate in class, you can almost certainly email, but if classes are over, and the numbers don’t round, it’s probably not going to happen. Once grades have been entered into the system, the procedure to get the grade changed is typically really long. If you’re not out for the semester yet, and still have some time before the grades are officially ‘due,’ I’d email or even stop by their offices. But this is one of those reasons you should make an effort to stop by in office hours and ask questions in class-- professors are a little more likely to bump if they know your name.</p>
<p>I had a borderline grade this semester. Luckily it was in a class for my major, and taught by the professor I do research with. I was at an A-, 92.37, so only .13 away from being rounded up to an A. I went to go talk to him and he told me that since I had perfect attendance to his class and was a big participator in class discussion that he was actually planning on bumping me up. I only went to talk to him about it because I felt like I had plenty to back up my argument. If you feel that you don’t, I wouldn’t, because then you’re just basically asking for a better grade with no reason other than asking for a better grade.</p>
<p>I do know a lot of people who’ve been in this situation, but most of them don’t get that extra few decimals and some don’t even ask. Does it suck? yeah. Is it life? yes.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses guys.
Yeah I don’t expect anything more than the grades I got right now and decided to just accept what I got. It’s not the end of the world at all, I’m sure it’ll work out for my favor later on. Plus, I don’t really have a compelling argument because I played alot for my first freshman year and socialized. It was worth it though :p</p>
<p>Why would you email your professor? Even if you did all your work to the fullest, you earned B+s. What would you even say if you emailed your professor? If you have no compelling argument you are only going to annoy them.</p>
<p>If you socialized a lot and still managed to pull off those grades, congrats! That’s an accomplishment!</p>
<p>If there is only one right answer on all questions or grading is based on a curve (like in math or science), then I can see why those precise percentages are necessary. However, if most grading is arbitrary (like in humanities and social sciences), then I don’t see how an exact percentage is a precise measurement of someone’s abilities in a course. I learned that the hard way in the fall with an 89.75 in a six hour course. That .25 literally cost me .04 points in my gpa. That is the difference between a top 3 law school and a top 6 law school, or $25,000 a year in salary. It really p****d me off.</p>
<p>It feels terrible to be a few decimal points away from the next grade. However, I still don’t email my professor unless I have a valid reason. I once did have a valid reason, though. My TA told us that if we attend the TA sections, the professor might curve our grade up if we are on the borderline; so attendance was actually taken for that class. I went to every single section diligently(which I would have done anyways), which I cant say applies to most people in that class. By the 7th week, there were only three students who actually went to section including me out of the 30 enrolled in that section. So when I emailed my professor asking about the extra-grade boost, I was devastated when she didn’t reply…twice. She usually replies to her e-mails within a day, so I thought it was obvious that she was ignoring me ( which I believe was actually the case because I sent another e-mail a quarter later concerning a different matter and she replied rather quickly).
So yeah uh the moral of my story: Most professors I would assume are pretty adamant about not changing grades without an actual valid reason other than out of pity. Especially for professor with a large class size of like more than 300 students; they can’t be expected to give out pity points to anyone who just simply ask.</p>
<p>side-note: i kind of miss the small class size in high school. I could have actually spoke to the instructors : / Even if they aren’t willing to change my grade, at least they won’t pretend I don’t exist. Jeeze.</p>